


Campaign For Family

by LananiA3O



Series: Batman: Arkham Compendium [17]
Category: Batman - All Media Types, Batman: Arkham (Video Games)
Genre: Batfamily Feels, Breaking the Fourth Wall, Christmas Fluff, Christmas Morning, Family Shenanigans, Gaming, Gen, Heartwarming, Meta, Post-Arkham, Pre-arkham, Sappy, Sibling Bonding, Time Skips
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-12-24
Updated: 2016-12-24
Packaged: 2018-09-11 17:20:06
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,452
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8999836
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/LananiA3O/pseuds/LananiA3O
Summary: Christmas has arrived at the manor, and so has most of the batfamily. Barb has brought her PlayStation, Dick has brought his usual cocky charm, Alfred has brought the food and Jason is being Jason. Hilarity ensues.





	

**Author's Note:**

> Happy holidays to all my readers and reviewers! I hope you and your loved ones are having a wonderful, blessed Christmas season.

It was half past three in the afternoon when his mind drifted from the blissful realm of dreamless sleep back into reality. The first thing he noticed was that he was warm. Warm and comfortable, bundled up in something soft. Even now, after more than a year in the manor, the feeling still surprised him sometimes. It was late December after all and December was not warm and comfortable. December was cold and harsh and unforgiving and worst of all it dangled warmth, light and coziness in front of your face and then laughed at you when the doors closed and you were left out in the blizzards that were so common in Gotham this time of year, stuck on cold asphalt buried beneath icy, unattractive, grey slush.

Except this was Wayne Manor, not Park Row. Outside of his window, pure white flakes were lazily drifting down towards the ground. He watched them stick to his window in frozen fractals as he crawled out of bed, stretched and slipped into the clothes that he had lain out before leaving for patrol the night before.

Yes, over here, outside of the steel and concrete monstrosity that was Gotham, snow was actually white. Somehow that never ceased to amaze him. With one last look at the powdery goodness outside his window, Jason set out to go and find the others.

***

Alfred was in the kitchen, diligently preparing snacks for the hungry mouths that had arrived at the manor earlier this afternoon. Just the sight of the many different dips, the chicken wings, the mini spring rolls and the samosas made his mouth water. Something delicious was baking in the oven, too, and it took every ounce of self-control he had not to rip the door open and grab a taste of whatever goodness was waiting for them later.

“Good afternoon, Master Todd, and merry Christmas. I hope you had a few good hours of sleep?”

“I definitely did.” And, boy, had he needed it. Christmas Eve was always busy for Batman and Robin, but this year, it had been a real pain in the ass. In between the charity events they had been expected to attend and the double shift they had pulled last night (fuck long December nights with sunset at four in the afternoon and sunrise at seven in the morning) he had been ready to kiss the floor any second. “Slept like a rock. And merry Christmas to you too, Alfie.”

He waited until the butler’s back was turned to swipe one of the samosas, then made his way to the coffee machine. By the time his three cups of black bliss were ready, Alfred had fixed him a nice breakfast of two omelets and that fruit-and-nuts yoghurt mix that somehow managed to squeeze a day’s ration worth of vitamins into one tiny bowl. _Bless Alfred and his cooking._ He accepted it all with a quick ‘thank you’ and was not surprised to find the old fox slip a spoonful of chili dip onto his plate in return.

“For the samosa, Master Todd.”

Jason downed his first two cups, refilled, and shook his head as he retreated from the kitchen. He’d have a better chance swiping the Koh-i-Noor from the Tower of London than stealing from Alfred’s kitchen. Maybe he should dare Catwoman to loot something from the Wayne Manor oven sometime.

***

Barbara and Dick were exactly where he had expected to find them, seated in front of the biggest flat screen TV in Wayne Manor (and possibly in all of Gotham). Barb had brought her PS3 and was busy wrestling the controller from aptly named Dick Grayson, who seemed determined to prove that he could do whatever it was he was trying to show off.

“You’re doing it all wrong, Dick!”

“No, I’m not, I can take those guys, easy!”

“You’re getting slaughtered and skinned over there. Hand me the controller and watch out for—“

On screen, the words ‘CAMPAIGN FAILED’ stared back at them in glaring white letters on a pitch black background. Barb threw her hands up in the air and scrambled over to the other side of the oversized couch, as if she couldn’t stand to be next to Dick for another second longer.

“Great. Now I have to restart the entire campaign AGAIN. Do you have any idea how long it took me to work out how to beat that first predator map?”

“What the fuck are you guys playing?” Balancing himself, his coffee and his food while leaning on the backrest of the couch was one thing. Keeping Dick’s hands away from _his_ breakfast was another matter entirely. The third time Dick tried to nick something from his plate, Barb kicked him in the ribs hard.

“Did you only just get up now?” Barbara sounded mildly worried. Her blue eyes narrowed in that instinctive Batgirl detective glance, looking him over from head to toe. “Did Bruce honestly drag you out for a double shift on Christmas Eve?”

“It’s not his fault the sun sets early and rises late in December. So… what are you guys playing?”

From the left end of the couch, Dick beamed at him with the most mischievous grin on his face, his hands locked firmly around a game box that nearly had Jason choke on his food. “ _Batman and Robin: Gotham Defenders_. The Game Of The Year edition, too. Haven’t you ever _dreamed_ of becoming Robin and bringing justice and punishment to the biggest super criminals of Gotham City, side by side with the world’s greatest detective, using a myriad of fun gadgets and a unique combat system?”

“I should punch you in the face.” Jason groaned as he eradicated the last gulps of coffee and set his plate and mug down on the coffee table. One quick jump later, he was seated in the middle of the couch, the controller practically daring him to pick it up. He reached for the box instead and examined it more closely. As visual representations of Batman and Robin went, the two figures on the cover didn’t look too bad, but that didn’t mean much. “Why do you keep on buying this crap? It’s just a cheap imitation of all the shit we go through every night. Most of the time, they barely get any of it right.”

“This one’s actually pretty good,” Barbara objected, while progressing through what looked like a hostage situation on-screen, stalking opponents carefully and taking them down using every fire extinguisher, junction box and sprinkler system on the map for easy distractions. “It has a simple, timing-sensitive combat system and the stealth segments are fun.”

“The stealth segments suck. They only gave Robin half the gadgets Batman has.” If the scowl on Dick’s face was anything to go by, there was a lot of hurt pride behind those words. “And the combat system has some weird reaction time delay that keeps throwing off my combos. In real-life, I’d wipe the floor with these guys in fifty seconds.”

Jason couldn’t help but grin over his omelet. “The Great Dick Grayson, beaten by a cheap superhero cash-in videogame. You just made my Christmas.”

He caught the pillow coming for his head out of the corner of his eye and ducked quickly. On the bright side, he could now enjoy the rest of his breakfast. On the not so bright side, Barb had launched herself forward behind his back in retaliation for taking a pillow to the face as soon as she had completed the map, and was now kicking dangerously close to his ribs. With a mournful sigh, Jason set the food down and reached for the controller.

It had been a while since the last time he had used one of these. In between catching up on his lost academic progress (nearly done) and his duties as Robin (never done) he had precious little time to spare for hobbies, a problem that all of them had to some degree or another. He knew that, whenever she was not reading, studying or kicking ass, Barb was an avid trophy hunter, a pro-gamer extraordinaire. If even she complained about whatever this campaign thing they were stuck on was, then this was going to be hell. He skimmed the controls in the pause menu quickly. _Square – punch. Triangle – counter. Circle – Stun. X – Evade. Circle + Triangle – takedown_. _Doesn’t sound too bad…_

The first fight ended within less than thirty seconds. He grimaced as Robin went down beneath a hail of fists and the screen slowly faded to black. Dick was definitely on to something – timing was essential. _Less button mashing, more deliberate hitting_ , _Jason_. He wolfed down the last few bites of his breakfast and selected ‘Retry’. It was halfway into his second attempt that he finally unlocked the secret to breaking the AI. Apparently, just like in real life, opponents did not know what to do with you if you evaded _towards_ them instead of _away from_ them. He restarted and stuck to his newly found exploit, making sure to hit the takedown buttons as soon as the option became available, specifically targeting the most threatening looking enemies. Soon, he was rewarded with three golden stars shining from the combat end card. From the other end of the couch, Barb and Dick looked between him and the screen in a mixture of shock and awe.

“You got three stars on that?! How the hell?”

“Screw three stars,” Barbara disentangled herself from one of Dick’s octopus hugs and scrambled over to get a better view of the screen. “Jason, how the hell did you manage to get both Dark Knight and Boy Wonder on that map?”

“I have no idea what you are talking about.” Sure, he could see the text on the end card, but there was no explanation as to what it meant. To him, they were random words and numbers. “You got your three stars. That’s what you were going for, right? Now you only have to do another one of those stealth maps and you’re done.”

“Yeah, but—“

“Dark Knight and Boy Wonder means you never got hit and you never dropped your combo,” Dick explained, still looking at the screen like he couldn’t believe his eyes. “That’s insane. You can’t be human.”

“Said the man-shaped octopus.”

This time, it was his turn to fend off a tackling assault. Dick was lightning-fast and relentless and soon they were on the floor trying to wrestle each other into submission. If he wasn’t mistaken, Babs had muttered something that sounded vaguely like ‘men really are dogs’ as she shook her head at the madness, but he couldn’t care less. This was a matter of personal pride. Jason Todd never backed down from a fight.

***

By the time Alfred arrived, a nearly-overflowing snack tray held firmly between his gloved hands, they were both a mess. Dick’s hair was sticking up at all kinds of angles and his clothes looked about a hair’s width away from being torn to shreds. In the upper right corner of his forehead, a bright red spot indicated where a bruise would be forming in the morning, thanks to a particularly vicious head-butt from Jason. If Dick’s grin was anything to go by, he didn’t mind.

“Damn, Jay, you hit harder than Bruce.”

“I wasn’t even trying…”

“And thank heavens for that.” From the doorway to the hall, Alfred looked at both of them with disapproval so subtle it would have flown right over the heads of most people. “The furniture in this room, while not antique, is not inexpensive, either. Please do try to restrict your combat exercises to the training rooms next time, young Masters.”

“Yes, Alfred.”

For a moment, he stared at Dick in sheer disbelief. Had they really just said exactly the same thing at exactly the same time in exactly the same tone? _Fucking Robin-conditioning…_ Judging from Dick’s own look, the feeling of surprise was mutual as well.

Outside of the coziness of the living room, the last glimpses of daylight had gone and night was once more draping its black cloak over Gotham. In a best case scenario, Bruce wasn’t awake yet, but he would be soon. Dinner would be short, the gift-unwrapping even shorter. More likely though he had already pulled another Houdini on all of them and was already out and about. As much as Jason wanted to believe that he would be just fine and dandy, the thought left a bad taste in Jason’s mouth. Gotham was a dangerous place and Batman was neither immortal nor invulnerable. Nobody should be out in this city all on their own. “So, BG, how’s that last campaign map coming?”

The look Barbara shot him in return was somewhere between cold-blooded murder and mild desperation. “I am not allowed to use vantage points or grates, the floor is littered with mines and everyone it that map is armored, so no silent takedowns.” He had no idea what any of that actually meant for her, but judging from the thinly veiled fury in her voice and the fact that the screen was once more reading ‘CAMPAIGN FAILED’, it was bad. Really, really bad. Of course, Batgirl read him like an open book. “I want to strangle the developers.”

“Let me give you some rope.” He snatched a quick handful of chips from the tray as Barbara reloaded the campaign, and settled back onto the couch so she could hand him the controller when it was time to switch to the combat map, while Alfred set up the snacks on the coffee table and Dick assumed what could only be described as the world’s most painful-looking perching position on the other side of the couch. “And Alfie…”

“Yes, Master Todd?”

“Tell Bruce if he’s not here in this room by ten to take part in the gift-unwrapping we’ll suit up, track him down and drag his ass back here, kicking and screaming if necessary.”

For a fraction a second, a warm smile ghosted across the butler’s lips. “In those exact words, Master Todd?”

“Yes. In those exact words, please, Alfie. Thank you.”

***

The blissful silence in Drake Manor’s living room lasted all of six minutes. It ended with a sequence of crashing and cracking sounds so loud, Tim might have thought someone had actually bypassed the many fences and gates and trap systems around the manor and broken in through the window.

He might have, if it hadn’t been a week shy of Christmas Eve. Since it _was_ December 17 th, this situation had been utterly predictable. By the time he reached the scene of the crime, the perps had long-since hurried down the hall on soft and silent toes.

“Screw this! I’m not putting that tree back together again.”

“I told you it was a bad idea,” Barbara grinned at him as she made her way from the hall to the massacred Christmas tree. The floor was a battle field of loose twigs and broken ornaments. “Who did it? Mitaine or Alizée?”

“I think it might have been both,” Tim admitted. He loved their cats. He really did. Only sometimes he wanted to strangle them. Those two things were not mutually exclusive. Especially in the bat family. “I give up. Let them maim the fucking fir. I need a break.”

As the PS4 booted up with a soft hum, Tim started digging through the hoard of games they had collected together. He was halfway through the pile when his hands landed on a familiar black box with silver lining. Robin’s Red vest stood out like a sore thumb. Or a glimmer of life. Depending on whom you asked.

“ _Batman and Robin: Gotham Defenders Remastered_... Man, I haven’t played that one in ages.”

“I have a special love/hate relationship with that game,” Barbara admitted as she made herself comfortable on the soft couch with a bottle of red wine. “Beautiful game, but I never managed to get all the Trophies. Stupid ‘Vengeance of the Night’ campaign map.”

“Unfinished platinums? Scandalous! We can’t have that.” The disk slid into the PS4 with a quiet swish. He made sure to sign in with Barb’s account and was ready to go within a minute. The first predator map was easy and Barbara assured him that she had beaten that one a million times over. The combat map was as difficult as combat got in that game, but evading towards the enemies made it a breeze. Next to him, Barbara’s eyes narrowed in concentration.

“So that’s how Jason did it back then...”

“Jason played this?” Tim raised an eyebrow at her. He knew Jason was a beast in real-life combat. He knew he was good at finding little loopholes, exploits and unconventional tactics like the counter-directional evade was in this game. He also knew that Jason had never shown much appreciation for any Bat-related merchandise. Then again, showing and feeling were two different things, and given everything Dick had told him about Jason’s reaction to Robin-merch, which was admittedly not a lot, he had a feeling it was less of a true dislike and more of a bashful kind of mistrust, as if he was waiting for the punch line where ‘Robin is my hero’ transformed into ‘Robin is a joke’. On screen, the final stealth map was loading. All armored. No grates. No vantage points. Mines in the Floor. Yeah, he remembered hating that map. “I’m trying to picture him sitting down to play this, but I don’t think my brain can handle that kind of weirdness.”

“Most of the time, he was too busy being Robin and trying to live up to Bruce’s insane expectations to bother with something like gaming,” Barb mentioned over the glass she had poured for herself. “But I usually got him to play a bit whenever he came over to study. You know, to give him something to offset all the seriousness. He _wrecked_ that combat map when I brought the game over for Christmas 2010. But none of us, not Dick, not Jason, not even me, ever got past that last map.”

“Well, you officially did just now.” He vaulted over the last set of crates and immediately grappled up to the ledge where the last terrified thug was patrolling the room. The takedown worked without a hitch and the words ‘CAMPAIGN MASTERED’ finally appeared on screen over the map’s end card. A few seconds later, the ‘Soar To The Top’ and ‘Platinum’ trophies unlocked with a happy ping. Barbara looked at him like a deer in the headlights and the sight made his lips stretch into a wide grin. “You might have noticed that the name on top of every leaderboard is ‘RobinTD’.”

“Unbe-goddamn-lievable.” Barb shook her head and downed her glass before snatching the controller from him and bringing up her trophy page. Underneath _Batman and Robin: Gotham Defenders_ – now with a full progress bar – _Batman and Robin: Gotham Saviors_ loomed half-finished. There was something sad and dreamy in her eyes as she skimmed the page of half-locked trophies. Tim couldn’t blame her. That game had been in development since the events at the Asylum and had hit the market just a few days before the fateful Halloween of 2015. It also included a DLC with a playable Batgirl. No wonder she had not been able to bring herself to finish it in more than a year now. Too many bad memories. “I wonder if we could have another gaming session together some day. You know, all of us. You, me, Dick... Jason... Though we’d probably have to have it at the Clock Tower and even then we’d likely have to drag him in there at gunpoint or something.”

“We’re not dragging Jason _anywhere_ against his will unless he’s critically injured and refusing to get help,” Tim corrected. “But you never know...” With a quick sigh, he poured a glass of red wine for himself. “He did manage to sit through a god-awful two-hour movie with us and he has been improving a lot. I think if we casually slipped it in at the end of a debrief, we might get him to stick around for a couple of minutes. Maybe not this month. Maybe not the next. But you know what the devs got coming out in March, right?”

Barb shrugged her shoulders and shook her head. Even when completely puzzled she was still an idol of beauty. Tim grinned over his glass and brought up the relevant article on the developer’s news and announcements website only to watch her nearly choke on her wine.

“Guardians of Gotham. No Batman, but playable Robin and Nightwing... and Red Hood.”

**Author's Note:**

> So, originally I had planned for the Christmas in Ill Weeds Grow Apace to coincide with real life Christmas. Then my schedule got derailed, so I decided to write some perfectly harmless, non-violent, non-angsty fluff in this canon for a change. Turned out to be a lot harder than I thought. Then I got stuck and frustrated on Catwoman's Top of The World (Extreme) map in Arkham City and I started wondering what the batkids' reactions to games about their characters would be like. It all snow-balled from there. Not sure if I will make this a part of Batman: Arkham Compendium. Canonically, it would fit. Mood-wise, so definitely not...


End file.
